Will Elon Musk Merge Tesla and SpaceX? A $1.75 Trillion Question

Why a Merger Is Now More Than Just Rumor

There is no formal merger agreement on the table, but the conversation has shifted sharply from "if" to "when." Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives crystallized this sentiment in a May 21 note, placing an 80% probability on a Tesla-SpaceX merger and suggesting the odds could climb to 80–90% by early 2027 . His logic is pragmatic: once SpaceX is publicly valued, the architectural details of a deal—share exchange ratios and mechanics—become executable .

Musk's biographer, Walter Isaacson, added a personal dimension to this analysis. In a CNBC interview on April 23, he stated his confidence that a merger is coming, arguing, "That’s in his heart. He wants to make this one big company" . Isaacson pointed to the companies' joint work on the Terafab semiconductor facility in Texas as tangible proof of their converging paths .

However, it's important to note the gap between analyst confidence and market sentiment. While prediction market Kalshi reportedly showed odds around 33% in late May—a figure reflecting a market that views a definitive merger agreement as plausible but genuinely uncertain—Ives' 80% figure has dominated headlines . This disparity is a crucial reminder that high-probability forecasts from a single source are not a guarantee.

The Financial Glue Binding Two Giants

For any corporate combination, the existence of clear and clean financial ties makes a deal exponentially easier. On this front, the last six months have been transformative.

Tesla's Path to a SpaceX Stake

The most significant connection was forged through a sequence of deals that re-routed Tesla's investment strategy. In January 2026, Tesla invested $2 billion in xAI, the artificial intelligence firm founded by Musk . Weeks later, on February 2, SpaceX acquired xAI in a deal that created a combined entity valued at $1.25 trillion . This acquisition had a direct impact on Tesla: the company secured FTC clearance in March to convert its $2 billion xAI investment into a direct equity stake in SpaceX . Though the resulting stake represents less than 1% of SpaceX's expected valuation, it was a critical first step in formally interlacing the two companies' ownership structures .

Growing Operational and Revenue Dependencies

The financial relationship is also playing out in day-to-day business. Tesla disclosed a staggering $573 million in revenue from sales to SpaceX and xAI last year. Of that, approximately $430 million came specifically from selling its large-scale Megapack battery-storage systems to xAI . This makes SpaceX, through its subsidiary, one of Tesla's most important energy customers, blurring the line between independent entities and symbiotic business units.

Shared Infrastructure

Beyond revenue, the two companies are now literally building the future together at a physical level. Their joint Terafab semiconductor fabrication facility in Texas is a concrete, multibillion-dollar commitment to shared infrastructure . For analysts like Ives, this physical overlap is not just a sign of collaboration but "the vital first step toward merging their vast operations" .

The Broader Mega-IPO Frenzy and Market Risks

SpaceX's offering is not happening in a vacuum. It is part of a historic wave of mega-IPOs, with OpenAI also reportedly planning to go public . This concentration of massive, AI-centric offerings hitting the market in a compressed timeframe has triggered a serious debate about market capacity.

Analysts and investors have raised pointed questions about whether global public markets can absorb a roughly $75 billion raise from SpaceX simultaneously with other massive tech IPOs without causing market disruption . The liquidity risk is not abstract; some market watchers have compared the potential strain to the "FAANG" era, but at a far grander scale, with the concern being that this concentration could overheat and destabilize the AI trade .

The Verdict: Inevitable or Speculative?

The building blocks for a Tesla-SpaceX merger are being laid in plain sight. A public SpaceX valuation will create a clean currency for a deal, and the operational and financial ties are already deep enough to make integration logical. For a prominent voice like Dan Ives, this makes a merger an 80% near-inevitability.

Yet the gap between an analyst's conviction and a signed deal is substantial. A merger between two companies of this size would be a regulatory lightning rod and a test of market liquidity unlike any in history. The path from the first exchange of shares to a formal combination is still a long one, and as of late May 2026, it has not yet been officially started.